Scotland saw the close of this year of their apparent triumph. If there were these apprehensions from enemies, there was likewise a growing alarm from the attitude of lukewarm and dubious friends. The sincerity and good faith of all who had taken part in the late revolution were about to be subjected to the most stringent of tests. By the enactments of the preceding year the ancient Church had been swept away; but the work of rearing a new edifice in its place still remained to be accomplished. With this object the Protestant ministers had been intrusted with the task of drafting a constitution for a new church which should take the place of the old. The ministers had discharged their trust, and the result of their labors was laid before the estates which met in Edinburgh on January 15, 1561. The document presented to the estates was the famous _Book of Discipline_--the most interesting and in many respects the most important document in the history of Scotland. If any proof were needed that the revolt against the ancient Church was no ill-considered act of irresponsible men, we assuredly possess that proof in this extraordinary book. Though in its primary intention the scheme of its ecclesiastical polity, it is in fact the draft of a "republic," under which a nation should live its life on earth and prepare itself for heaven. It not only prescribes a creed, and supplies a complete system of church government: it suggests a scheme of national education, it defines the relation of church and state, it provides for the poor and unable, it regulates the life of households, it even determines the career of such as by their natural gifts were especially fitted to be of service to church or state. As we shall see, the suggestions of the _Book of Discipline_ were to be but imperfectly realized; yet, by defining the ideals and moulding the temper and culture of the prevailing majority of the Scottish people, it has been one of the great formative influences in the national development.